Frances Black (Independent)

I second the amendment. I also welcome Senator Chris Andrews back to the Chamber as well. I, too, welcome the ceasefire today. I absolutely endorse everything Senator Patricia Stephenson said. On behalf of the Civil Engagement Group, we send our condolences to Senator Teresa Costello and her family on the passing of her father recently.

Today, I want to speak on voting rights for those abroad. Before I do, I pay tribute to the late former Senator for the diaspora, Billy Lawless from Galway. Billy was the chair of the executive committee of VotingRights.ie and one of several cofounders. As we all know, he emigrated to Chicago in 1998 and created a very successful restaurant business. There, he became a leader in immigration reform. I have to pay tribute to him but I call for a debate on this issue. We have the most restrictive voting rights policies in the world here in Ireland. Allowing emigrant citizens to retain their right to vote is established in most nations, including many of our fellow EU countries. There are 800,000 citizens living in the North of Ireland and more than 1 million emigrants living around the world. That is an awful lot of Irish people being excluded and deprived of their right to be heard in their own home country.

Even our own Constitution states, "It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born on the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish Nation." Some of the restrictions in our voting policies include the requirement to be on the island to vote on election day and the amount of time emigrants can be away from Ireland. Once a citizen leaves Ireland for only 18 months, they are dropped from the voting roll. It is important to look at both of these policies and ask whether, in the times we are living in, especially with the type of digital flexibility we have now, it still makes sense to hold these restrictions over our citizens or whether it is time now for change. As we are ten days away from voting for the future President of Ireland, at the very least we need to be opening up these conversations to discuss and explore what options we have and what in direction we as a country can take our voting rights.I will be co-hosting a briefing on voting rights tomorrow in the audiovisual room at 4 p.m. in conjunction with VotingRights.ie. I have invited a number of experts in this area to share their knowledge with Oireachtas Members and allow us to have that extremely important discussion. I hope Members will come along tomorrow. I would also like to have a debate on the issue in this House if possible.